


Lucky Strike

by dyingpoet



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Brotherly Love, Canon Era, mostly jack and race brotherly dynamic, this was supposed to be sprace but spot doesnt really have a major role so im not tagging it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 08:40:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18091088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyingpoet/pseuds/dyingpoet
Summary: There's a fire in Manhattan lodging one night





	Lucky Strike

**Author's Note:**

> based on a prompt for an anon on tumblr (sorry for forgetting sprace jsbvhs)

A rough shaking at his shoulder jolted Race awake, and off of instinct he shoved away at the hands, groaning into his pillow.

“Leave me alone-”

“Race, get up, now.”

It was the urgency mixed with fear that got Race to look up, and the view of the bunk room that made him shoot out of bed. There was smoke everywhere, and kids running for the door or waking up others, like Albert had done him. 

The shock combined with sleepiness made him pause, and Albert grabbed his wrist and dragged him to the door before he could process anything else. 

“Where is it?” he asked, turning his head to look back at the bunk room as he tried to catch sight of a flame somewhere. His eyes had started burning immediately, but he couldn’t feel the heat yet, and the smoke was light, they still had some time. 

Albert shoved him forward and coughed in his shirt. The two of them were moving down the stairs quickly, the smoke lessening even more as they did. It was upstairs somewhere. 

“Back room,” Albert coughed out. When Race turned back toward the staircase again, he grabbed a fistful of his shirt and half pulled, half pushed him toward the door. There was a crowd of the other boys pushing to make their way out, and Race started doing a headcount without really thinking. 

He could see smoke pushing its way down the staircase though, and a burst of fear had him taking his turn out the door, followed closely by Albert and the others. When the two of them stumbled out, they saw the crowd of boys huddled on the sidewalk across the street, looking up at the building. 

Race tipped his head back to get at what they were seeing, and gasped. Albert hadn’t been lying, there was fire licking out of the windows of the top floor of the building, more toward the back, but making its way toward the street. 

“Everyone stop movin’ around!”

Race turned and saw Blink standing up on the stoop of the building they were in front of. He was looking out over their group, eyes flicking back to the building; they were lucky to have figure out there was a fire as early as they did, someone must’ve been awake. There were horror stories about buildings lighting up when everyone was asleep, and it made Race sick to think about. 

Blink was counting all of them now, mouthing out the names of the boys in front of him through shaking breaths. 

“I got everyone but Jack and Crutchie,” he said after a second, and everyone turned back toward the building. 

“I’m pretty sure they was up on the roof last night.”

“I didn’t see ‘em come out.”

“Not in the bunk room either, thought they were down here already.”

The whispers grew, fear rippling through the group as fast as the fire that had now torn through the whole top floor of their building, and was making its way down fast. Jack and Crutchie were still up there.

Mush moved forward first, making it a few steps before Elmer and Finch caught the back of his shirt and dragged him back. Race felt his heart start up fast in his chest as the kids around him started panicking, some of them making to run back inside while the rest of them held them back. 

“Racer?”

Race looked and saw Albert staring at him cautiously, subtly taking a step in front of him to block his way to the building. Smoke was clogging the whole street now, and Race felt his lungs seize up before he fell into a coughing fit, staggering forward and past Albert. 

They was going to die in there, they both wouldn’t make it out and they sure as hell wouldn’t leave the other behind. 

The reality of that sunk in, and Race stopped hearing the frantic yells of the other people about him. He was just remembering those two, they had been newsies longer than everyone but Race himself, and everyone had just  _ left _ .  _ He _ had just left. 

After that he took a step back, feeling like a piece of him had split off, and then he was watching himself run toward the building instead of actually doing it himself. Time stretched for a long second like that, and he couldn’t hear much or feel much and he had no idea which version of him was closer to the building. 

His brothers were going to die.

The thought snapped him back just as there was a panicked yell coming from somewhere behind, reverberating hazily through the thick layer of smoke. Race turned, heart pounding and dizzy, the brief feeling of disconnect coming down like withdrawal and he caught a glance of a red shirt before he was pushed to the ground. 

Then there was a sound like the shot of a gun and everything was black.

* * *

 

Race was pretty sure he was dead at first. There was a brief second after he opened his eyes where it was dark and quiet and he couldn’t feel any sort of pain, and he sort of wished he’d been paying more attention to all those nuns on the street.

“He awake?”

That was Spot’s voice though, thicker and lower than normal, but still his, and Race knew he wasn’t dead. Spot wasn’t at the fire. There was a  _ fire _ . 

Shooting up, a pain slammed through his head and he hissed loudly, bringing a hand to his forehead and feeling a bandage covering it. 

“Well he is now.”

Someone sat down on the bed he’d been laying down and the room came into focus, as did everyone inside. Romeo was curled up on the edge of the bed, staring at him fearfully with his his knees drawn up to his chest. Spot was leaning against the doorway, and Albert was next to him. 

Race didn’t care about any of them right then, though. Jack was sitting in front of him, covered in ash and looking like more of a chimney sweep than a newsie, but he was  _ there _ . 

“Hey, kid-”

Jack’s cracked voice was cut off as Race launched forward and into his arms, crying before he could get ahold of himself. Coughs were coming out raggedly between breaths, and there were pricks of pain going through his chest and his head especially, but it was all second hand. 

There was the feeling of a hand rubbing his back and he felt Jack’s chest vibrate with a weak chuckle. “I’m here, it’s okay.”

He was there, and Race pulled back quickly, wiping at his eyes with the sleeve of a shirt that wasn’t his, and looked around the room frantically. “Where’s Crutch?”

“Sleeping,” Albert said from the doorway, and Jack nodded too. “They both climbed down the fire escape, jumped down just as you went down, actually.”

Race took a deep breath and put his head in his hands, trying to keep the sobs from coming back. Everything was moving fast through his head, the clearest picture of all being the building burning and the intense feeling of fear, and then guilt. A lot of guilt was there and it was pushing the sobs back up his throat.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to meet Jack’s eyes, which were searching his face, narrowed. “Hey, it’s okay buddy, we all got out fine, everyone’s safe.”

That wasn’t the point though. Race was beyond happy that Jack and Crutchie had gotten out, but it was the fact that he left that was killing him. They were his brothers and he  _ left _ them. If either of them had died-

Someone cleared their throat and Race watched Spot look at Jack and then nod to the door. Jack understood and pulled away from Race, tapping Romeo on the shoulder and speaking lightly. “He’s okay, can you go outside and wait for him, kid?”

Romeo looked between Jack and Race quietly, and when he and Race connected eyes there was a physical pang in Race’s chest. He looked terrified. 

Sniffling a little bit, Race pushed lightly at the kid’s knee and mimicked Jack’s tone. “I’m all right, I’ll be right out, okay?”

Relief washed over Romeo’s face, and he rushed forward to give Race a brief hug before hopping off the bed and leaving the room, whispering something to Albert, who followed him out the door. Spot moved to sit down on the bed next to Jack once they left, and Race pulled himself into a cross-legged position, looking down. 

Spot spoke first. 

“You shouldn’ta done what you did, Race.”

Shocked, Race looked up and saw Jack nodding in agreement. “Yeah, you could’a ended up back inside, the whole place went down-”

“The  _ fuck _ do you mean?” Race snapped, intensity in his voice drawing a raised eyebrow out of Spot. “I thought you two were  _ burnin’ _ in there and you’se mad I went  _ back _ ?”

Jack raked a hand through his hair, looking much more conflicted than Spot, who’d fallen silent again.

“It ain’t anyone’s job to die for us, and you  _ would’a _ died,” Jack said quietly. “‘Specially since you’se the next in line if somethin’ happens.”

Both of them were humming their agreement then, and Race wasn’t even trying to keep the shock off his face. “Jack, none of that shit matters ‘cause I’m your  _ brother _ , and I left both of ya up there-”

“Didn’t leave anyone,” Jack cut in. “You got yourself out, that ain’t the same thing as abandonin’ us.”

The guilt was still there, and Race ducked his head as he felt tears pricking at his eyes again, because Jack was the one who almost died and he was sitting here trying to make Race feel better. 

The room was quiet for a minute or two while Race breathed jaggedly, trying to hold himself back from crying. He just kept imagining the two of them dead in there, leaving him alone, but not really alone and it wasn’t their  _ fault _ , Race didn’t know whose fault it all was but it had to be his-

He knew he was crying then, and he felt Jack wrap his arms around him again and felt him saying something to try and calm Race down but it wasn’t working. Everything felt cold and bad and his fault, and he didn’t have the energy to feel embarrassed for clinging to Jack like he was a kid again. Even in front of Spot, who’d gotten to Manhattan god knows when, but Race had the lingering suspicion that he was the one who’d tackled him to the ground, saving him, depending on whose line of logic you were choosing to follow. 

“Everything’s gonna be fine, kid,” Jack soothed, and Race could feel him shaking a bit under Race’s weight as well. “Everyone’s still here.”

And from a combination of exhaustion, physical and emotion, and probably coupled with the fact that it still seemed to be the middle of the night, Race’s crying died out after a while, and he felt himself falling asleep, still clinging to Jack. 

There were words passed above his head, which was falling fast into blackness, and Race focused on the air he was breathing in and how it was  _ clean _ . At some point, maybe Jack moved, Spot too, but Race fell asleep there. With his brother, like they were kids again. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> hope u guys liked this!!!! a little different than what i normallr write but i think it came out okay :)
> 
> leave kudos/comments if you can!!!!


End file.
